


touch screen

by intaglionyx



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 17:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intaglionyx/pseuds/intaglionyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>As the days since the splitting of your group pass with the ticking of your watch and the long cold stretch of nearly sleepless nights, you come to understand that Roxy Lalonde's handsy nature is more than just an expression of her desire for contact; it is her way of proving to herself that you are really there.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	touch screen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



 She tells you everything, or tries to through through the kind of drowsiness that can only be afflicted by a day as long as this one has been. Roxy smells of alcohol and sweat even with your sleeping bag zipped up nearly to her chin. You found the musty old thing while digging through your father's closet for travel gear and other necessities, a process that had not been hastened by Roxy's ceaseless chatter and the need she felt every so often to tiptoe through the piles of boxes and gear assorted behind you to place a hand on your back or to sling an arm over your shoulders. The unannounced physical contact always makes you jump a little. If social isolation made your friend crave that kind of closeness, it had an opposite effect on you, if not one quite so extreme. The feeling of her fingers on the small of your back makes you uncomfortable enough to stiffen your shoulders and frown, but not enough to speak up about it.

You have a few inches on Roxy, so you end up wrapped in your dad's sleeping bag. The overpowering scent of mothballs drowns whatever traces of himself he left in the thing, which is probably for the best; his absence only adds to the unfamiliarity of your situation.

Unlike Roxy, you can't bring yourself to sleep, and so you are fully alert as she narrates the basic framework of her life to you through the combined haze of your shared fatigue and her hangover. Your friend sleepily slurs and yawns her way through the destruction of the human race like she's telling a bedtime story; the fundamental disconnect between the subject matter and her tone scares you more than a little. Eventually her mumbling slows to a stop. She falls asleep pressed flush against the back of your sleeping bag. You can't feel her warmth through the double layers of down and polyester, but the mere fact of her presence is enough to keep your back straight and your eyes wide open for hours into the night. 

It's too big to – not to _believe_ ; after the things you've seen in the last several hours you have little trouble believing Roxy's statement that she is _the Robin Hood of the FUTURE, Janey_. The sight of the CrockerCorp logo emblazoned across that beast of blood red steel in the sky above your house was enough to dispel whatever doubts you had regarding the veracity of most of the things that your friend had regularly claimed. Rather, it's too much for you to process right now. You can handle being on another world, you can handle actually seeing your friends for the first time, and you can (barely) handle your father being missing, but the extermination of your species is too much and too distant for your mind to really bear. 

The watch your father gave you on your thirteenth birthday ticks along with the passing of the hours until even your discomfort is barely enough to keep you from closing your eyes.

You can feel Roxy's hands moving behind layers of thick fabric and hear her breath rustling against the smooth surface of your sleeping bag. You have never trusted her more in the time you have known her, but your jaw still goes tight as her arm slips out from her own bag to snake across the surface of yours. Her fingers curl against your bag's zipper. You let out a slow breath through clenched teeth.

As the days since the splitting of your group pass with the ticking of your watch and the long cold stretch of nearly sleepless nights, you come to understand that Roxy Lalonde's handsy nature is more than just an expression of her desire for contact; it is her way of proving to herself that you are really there. That knowledge does not make you any less uncomfortable when her hands find their ways to your shoulders or when she nuzzles with her nose and chin, still half-asleep at sunrise, against the curve of your neck. The tension in you grows nearly to the breaking point, then. But there is a part of you that understands, if only imperfectly. You grew up with a parent who expressed his affection through painstakingly placed index cards bearing proclamations of fatherly pride. She grew up with no one at all.

As the weeks pass without sight or sound of your dad's whereabouts, you grow accustomed to Roxy's presence at your side. You become comfortable with _her_ , if not with the way her hands seem to sneak to your arms and your sides whenever given half a chance. You become as accustomed to the sound of her voice and the movements of her face as you ever were to the color and rhythm of her text. You become familiar with the scent of her, beyond the stink of day-old sweat and stale booze. Her smell comes as easily to mind as the stiflingly utilitarian aftershave reek that you associate with your father, though it isn't as easy for you to describe, save to say that it is certainly more pleasant.

But, still – the touching. As much as you love your friend, you grow tired of her needing to reaffirm your presence at every passing moment. One day, as her hand lifts from her side to touch your shoulder or upper arm, you catch it with your own. Her hair sweeps around her neck as she turns to stare at you. You thread your fingers between hers. Your breath catches in your throat at the change in her eyes and at the way her split-second expression of open shock changes to her usual breakneck smile. For the space of a few heartbeats, she squeezes your hand with the same kind of fierceness held in her expression.

After that, she doesn't reach for you quite as often as she did before. You would still describe her as _handsy_ , and it still makes you uncomfortable on occasion, but – every so often, your hand seeks hers, rather than the other way around.


End file.
